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Buddy Roemer and voting rights

12/01/11 10:59 AMUpdated 08/07/13 08:04 AM

Buddy Roemer and voting rights

A bunch of you have been asked, as well you might, whether former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer ever made good on his promise to turn voting rights into an issue “absolutely” and immediately. You’ll remember that in October, presidential hopeful Mr. Roemer went to Occupy Wall Street and got challenged on what he thinks about his own Republican Party’s rollback of voting rights.

Roemer: [Y]ou asked me had I made this an issue. I have not. I’ve not made it an issue.

2nd Protester: Will you? Will you?

Roemer: Absolutely.

2nd Protester: Immediately?

Roemer: Absolutely

I caught up with Mr. Roemer about this before he appeared on our show this week. He sounded chagrined, in a friendly way, about the month-old promise to do something right away. “I’ve not yet come out on that,” he said. While Mr. Roemer said he would like to see some kind of standards put in place to prevent voter fraud, he also told me he’s still doing research on the issue (which I think will show that voter fraud is really, really rare and even more rarely fixed by requiring new forms of ID).

This morning, as Mr. Roemer begins his third-party bid for the presidency, I noticed him talking about voting rights on the twitters. “Voter suppression is misguided, futile, and wrong,” Mr. Roemer wrote. “We should be encouraging people to vote, not creating barriers.” I’m guessing that’s still not Mr. Roemer’s final answer, but he clearly does hear you. And to his credit, he responds.